Sonia Gandhi, Congress Party President.	Rahul Gandhi, debutant lawmaker from Amethi	Maneka Gandhi, BJP lawmaker from Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh

NEW DELHI : The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty –– which has dominated Indian politics since independent and actually ruled India for close to 40 years –– is once again resurgent. And so much was evident when the 14th Lok Sabha, the lower house of the bicameral Parliament, met for its first session last week. Consider:

When Rahul Gandhi took oath as a member of Parliament on June 3, he became the eighth member of the family to do so. The seven others were: Rahul’s great-grandfather and India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru; his grandmother Indira Gandhi, also a former prime minister; his grandfather Feroze Gandhi; his uncle Sanjay Gandhi; his father Rajiv Gandhi, another former prime minister; his mother and Congress Party President Gandhi; and his estranged aunt Maneka Gandhi.

Despite such a heavy presence in the house, it is for the first time that three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family are in the house at the same time: Rahul, Sonia and Maneka, who won on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket from Pilibhit.

It is after a gap of 24 years a mother-son duo from the family has made it to the Lok Sabha. In 1980, Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi were elected from Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies, respectively. Similarly, Congress president Sonia Gandhi was elected from Rae Bareli while Rahul was elected from Amethi.

The family’s sway on the Lok Sabha can only increase. The next Lok Sabha may, in fact, see two more of them: It is widely believed that Rahul’s sister Priyanka will contest the next general elections. And his cousin Varun, Maneka Gandhi’s son, who campaigned for the BJP in the recent elections, did not contest only because he is not yet 25, which is the required minimum age to run for election.